Posts Tagged ‘shetland triangle’

… and it’s not even nearly over yet. However, it did start an awfully long time ago and kertrillions of gallons of water have flowed under the bridge where the trolls live. I managed to avoid eye to eye contact with any of the worst trolls and stuck to knitting shawls for comfort.

There’s the Forest Canopy shawl, the Shetland Triangle shawl and the rather odd very easy shawl in garter stitch and stocking stitch, with variations on reverse stocking stitch and k3 rows, p1 row… in a very weird yarn from Wendy (who? vaguely reminiscent of Patons or Sirdar?) called ‘Happy’. Still not really happy, splits a lot, was tempted by 75% bamboo and 25% nylon… and the price tag £5-50 for 400m. I made up the pattern as I went along, bored by the yarn, not wanting to give up. Even the increasing either side of the five central ‘spines’ did not keep me from boredom. Maybe I should meditate more. In any case I’m into my second 400m and zooming along, bit between my teeth. Just let me meet one of those trolls on the way!

I’ve still got two pairs of socks on the go, one in Edinburgh for J and one at home for me, in Noro sock yarn, which I don’t like either.

Time for reflection. I have baskets and baskets of yarns I drool over. Why am I knitting with yarns I don’t like? Since I think it’s already the end of the year – mere wishful thinking – I shall make this my New Year’s resolution, to knit with the most yummy yarns I have. I am not exactly likely to stop buyin them when they are used up ;/

This I started for Ravelympics 2008… and had I knitted it to the size indicated in the pattern I would have finished… but I did 18 repeats instead of 11 and it has turned out to be a beautiful full sized shawl. More details on ravelry ‘alternativeyarns’.

Now I’ve started a very simple small shawl in bands of stocking stitch and garter stitch, using ‘Happy’ by Wendy, a 4-ply bamboo / nylon mix. 75% bamboo, 25% nylon. Feels very soft and silky, splits, and has long colour changes not unlike Noro. Won’t use it again, but I have 2 balls equalling 800m. Instead of 3 points this shawl has 7, so 2 additional points between the ends and the centre. That makes for 12 increases instead of 4 each increase row, so the increase rows are decreased in frequency accordingly.

Life has been very BUSY, so it’s an amazing feeling to have finished the Shetland Triangle. My instinct is always to dive into another project immediately, never mind the others I have on the go. So the Noro socks are still waiting, and so is my top down raglan in alpaca silk, as is the 720 squares wrap. I’ll ease into them, particularly as I seem to havea couple of weeks at home, and whilst working, at least not dashing all over the place juggling way too many balls at the same time. Sleep? I slept until 11:30 am this morning 🙂

I have no picis yet of the shetland Triangle shawl I did… almost finished… for the Ravelympics, but it is coming on apace. Had I done the specified number of repeats I would have finished well within the deadline, but that would have given me a shawl about 50cm deep and 1m across, so not much use for wearing. I took it on holiday to Donegal with me, but didn’t get much done, then steamed away with it when we got back to Brighton, but since then I’ve got back to work… and I’m flying to Edinburgh tonight… where Joolz socks await me.

Joolz (re-) learned to knit this August and has started a scarf – or scraf, as we bizarrely now call them – in blue blue blues from my stash. 5 sts garter stitch each side, then blocks of 10 stocking stitch, 10 reverse stocking stitch for 50 stitches, reversing these when the colour changes, at random, or when Joolz gets fed up with the current one. Which is how I did mine, here.

I’ve been so busy moving, I hadn’t heard about this, but I’ve decided, wildly, to attempt a Shetland Triangle for the event. I’ll be knitting for Dog Chicken and Aardvark, the Brighton nomadic knitters. One of these days I’ll be able to join them on their travels. The yarn will be House of Hemp Expressions 2ply, of which I have a sizeable selection, at my new home. It’s been calling for shawl status for a while now. Picis when I can move my body to find the camera without aching from lugging all those boxes over the last two days 🙂